[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 157 (Tuesday, October 27, 2009)]
[House]
[Page H11834]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   MILITARY STRATEGY FOR AFGHANISTAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. JONES. Mr. Speaker, tonight I want to read a few paragraphs from 
an article written by Andrew Bacevich. It was in the American 
Conservative in May of this year, and the title is ``To Die For a 
Mystique: The lessons our leaders did not learn from the Vietnam War.''
  ``In one of the most thoughtful Vietnam-era accounts written by a 
senior military officer, General Bruce Palmer once observed, `With 
respect to Vietnam, our leaders should have known that the American 
people would not stand still for a protracted war of an indeterminate 
nature with no foreseeable end to the U.S. commitment.'
  ``General Palmer thereby distilled into a single sentence the central 
lesson of Vietnam: to embark upon an open-ended war lacking clearly 
defined and achievable objectives was to forfeit public support, 
thereby courting disaster. The implications were clear: never again.''
  I further read from the article, ``To Die For a Mystique.''
  ``To cite General Palmer's formulation, the citizens of this country 
at present do appear willing to `stand still' when considering the 
prospect of war that goes on and on. While there are many explanations 
for why Americans have disengaged from the Long War, the most 
important, in my view, is that so few of us have any immediate personal 
stake in that conflict.''
  Again, that was from the book written by General Bruce Palmer.
  Mr. Speaker, I further read from this article. This is the close. 
``The President who vows to `change the way Washington works' has not 
yet exhibited the imagination needed to conceive of an alternative to 
the project that his predecessor began.
  ``The urgent need is to demystify that project, which was from the 
outset a misguided one. Just as in the 1960s we possessed neither the 
wisdom nor the means needed to determine the fate of Southeast Asia, so 
today we possess neither the wisdom nor the means necessary to 
determine the fate of the Greater Middle East. To persist in efforts to 
do so--as the Obama administration appears intent on doing in 
Afghanistan--will simply replicate on an even greater scale mistakes 
like those that Bruce Palmer and John Kerry once rightly decried.''
  Mr. Speaker, I read this for this reason: I want to first say to the 
President, thank you for taking the time and thank you for being very 
careful in making your decision as to what our future plans are for 
Afghanistan. And, Mr. Speaker, I wanted to read this because Andrew 
Bacevich knows better than anyone. He fought in Vietnam for this 
country. He later became a professor at West Point. And during the Iraq 
war, he buried his son, a lieutenant, who was a graduate of West Point 
who was killed for this country. So I think we need to be very careful 
as we move forward, and I want to again say to the President, please 
take your time, make the right decisions for this country.
  I have the privilege of having Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base in my 
country. I have gotten to know a lot of marines, both active duty and 
retired. I recently spoke to a general that I cannot name because I 
don't have his permission, but if I did, he would be well known to the 
Marine Corps.

                              {time}  1730

  He said to me 3 weeks ago, Please tell your colleagues on both sides 
of the aisle to move very carefully, to have a full, understood plan 
and a defined plan as to what we're supposed to accomplish in 
Afghanistan. Again, this general fought in Vietnam for this country.
  So with that, Mr. Speaker, I will close as I always do by asking God 
to please bless our men and women in uniform. I ask God to please bless 
the families of our men and women in uniform. I ask God, in His loving 
arms, to hold the families who have given a child dying for freedom in 
Afghanistan and Iraq. I will ask God to bless the House and Senate, 
that we will do what is right. I will ask God to give wisdom, strength 
and courage to the President of the United States, that he will do what 
is right in the eyes of God. And three times I will ask, God please, 
God please, God please continue to bless America.

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